Economy

Leeds is one of the UK’s most successful cities and has the second largest employment total outside London.

Leeds has one of the most diverse economies of all the UK’s main employment centres. The city is a major centre for manufacturing and commerce, with over 420,000 people employed in the local economy.

With a workforce of around 110,000, Leeds is the UK’s largest centre for financial and professional services outside London, and an integral part of the UK’s financial services industry.

Over 120,000 people are employed in knowledge-intensive occupations, making Leeds the largest centre for knowledge-based industries outside London.

Leeds has the UK’s third biggest manufacturing sector. Within this sector, the city is the UK’s largest provincial printing centre. It is also one of the largest centres for the media and communications industries.

The city is one of the country’s top shopping destinations, with shoppers from across the UK drawn to Leeds by leading fashion retailers including Harvey Nichols, Vivienne Westwood, Louis Vuitton and O’Neill.

Retail in Leeds is set to be transformed by the £650 million Trinity Leeds and the £800 million Eastgate Quarters. The two proposed developments will create over 1.3 million sq ft of new retail retail space in the city centre.

The tourism industry supports over 25,000 jobs in Leeds. Major attractions include the Royal Armouries, Henry Moore Institute, West Yorkshire Playhouse and Harewood House.

Leeds is recognised as the regional capital of Yorkshire and the Humber, an area with a population of 5 million, similar to that of Scotland or Denmark.

The city is a major employment provider for the region as a whole, with over 100,000 people commuting to work in Leeds from outside the district every day.

As regional capital, Leeds is the main centre for government departments and utilities providers in the region.

Yorkshire Forward, the regional development agency, has its headquarters in Leeds, as does Welcome to Yorkshire, the official tourism agency for Yorkshire and the Humber.

There are over 24,000 businesses in Leeds registered for VAT and/or PAYE. 300 organisations based in the city employ more than 200 people each, representing 40% of employment but only 1.1% of all organisations.

The number of employee jobs in Leeds grew by 51,300 (or 14%), between 1998 and 2008. This was the second best performance by any UK city, with Glasgow growing by 66,300. 86% of employees in Leeds work in the service sector.

Leeds is recognised as the top legal centre in the UK outside London.

The city is expected to generate over a quarter of the region’s employment growth over the next decade.

Passenger numbers through Leeds Bradford International Airport reached 2.8 million in 2008 and are projected to reach 5 million per annum by 2016.

The value of the city’s economy is estimated at £14.2 billion (2010) and is projected to grow by over a quarter in the next ten years.

[Last update 5/7/10]